


Conduct Unbecoming

by debwalsh



Series: Take Up Your Shield and Follow Me [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Pining, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Super Soldier Serum, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:06:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1912065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard Stark wants to understand what Hydra did to James Buchanan Barnes, and in testing his theory, he learns more about the two boys from Brooklyn and what their futures may hold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conduct Unbecoming

“All right, let’s see what we have here, huh?” Howard Stark was saying, gesturing for Sargent James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes to hop onto the examination table in Stark’s lab.  Around them, white-coated scientists, uniformed military technicians, and plain-clothed civilian administrative personnel swirled, an eddying dance of chaos and humanity, not so different from the USO dances Bucky used to love in the times before. 

Now, he closed his eyes against the confusion of it pressed against his bruised senses.  Not for the first time, he wondered just where he’d left himself, and when he was going to find that kid from Brooklyn again.

“Barnes?  You with me, pal?” Stark’s voice called to him, not unkindly, but not patiently either.  Bucky’s eyes snapped open, and in that moment between darkness and light, Bucky fully expected to find himself strapped to an unforgiving table, the leering, bespeckled pig face poised over his, the spray of fluid from yet another needle arcing toward his cheek.

Instead, he found the clean lights of Stark’s lab, the slightly concerned furrow of Stark’s prominent eyebrows, and there, through the arch, the harsh lights of the underground complex haloed a golden head more dear to him than life or eternal damnation.

Stark turned and followed his gaze toward Captain Steve Rogers, a low huff of breath accompanying the move.  “Oh.  So that’s how it is.  Shoulda known.  Hell, _I’d_ suck that dick.”

“Word is you ain’t choosy,” Bucky grated out, balling his fists against the urge to sock Stark right in the schnoz.

“You didn’t say no,” Stark pointed out, turning his attention back to his work.  “Little prick,” he announced, and stabbed a needle into Bucky’s arm, chuckling at his puerile joke as he drew the first vial of blood.

“Asshole,” Bucky grumbled with a little snarl, gritting his teeth against the pinch of the hypodermic.

“So you and,” Stark jerked his head sideways toward where Steve stood, discussing something over a map with one of Phillips’s commanders.  Steve looked up at that moment, spied Bucky, and smiled shyly, lifting his hand to wave, just a little bit.

It was such a Steve move, it made Bucky’s heart race.  Bucky raised his hand, fingers waggling weakly, smiling stupidly like he always did when faced with Steve.

“Yeah,” Stark breathed, watching the exchange.  “Your heart rate’s up just lookin’ at him.”

Bucky turned then and closed his hand around Stark’s throat then.  “It’s not like that. _He’s_ not like that –“

Stark was scrabbling at Bucky’s hand, his face growing redder, more swollen with the effort to suck in a breath.  With a grunt, Bucky let go and jerked back on the table.  

Steve was suddenly there, demanding, “Something goin’ on here, fellas?  You okay, Buck?  Hey, you’re bleeding!”

Bucky looked down and saw Steve was right – the needle Stark had in his arm had broken open and torn the skin, and blood was gushing out of the vein Stark had tapped for his lab tests.  Impatiently, Bucky pulled out the needle and handed it silently to Stark, then clamped his hand over the puncture.  “It’ll heal,” he growled, eyes locked with Stark’s.

Stark seemed to be considering what to say next because he didn’t speak right away.  Massaging his throat and silent for once – that was a new one for Howard Stark.  Finally, he nodded, and said, “Sorry about that Barnes.  I should’ve been more sensitive – of course you wouldn’t like needles, not after all they did to you back there.  You know.”

Tilting his head sideways, looking at Stark warily, Bucky grudged a nod.  “’S’all right.  We done here?”

“For now.  I’ll run these through analysis, but I’m probably going to want to do some further tests, all right?  We need to know what Schmidt’s people did to you.  Check in at the med section and get that arm bandaged up.” 

Bucky stared at Howard for a long moment, assessing.  Finally, he nodded once.  ”Same time tomorrow?  And you’ll figure out a different way to take blood, mebbe?”

“Yeah, sure thing, pal,” Howard replied, frowning doubtfully.

***

Howard was genuinely surprised when Barnes entered his workshop at more or less that time they’d agreed the day before.  He looked up from where he was tinkering with a metal-plated prosthetic arm.    “Didn’t think you’d show.”

“Said I would.  Figure out a better way to take blood yet?” Barnes asked, standing still in the entry to the lab.

“Not really.  Any method involves a puncture,” Howard shrugged apologetically.  He set the arm down gently in a wooden hinged case, draping a soft fabric over its bright metal.  “Let me take a look at the damage from yesterday – you were bleeding pretty bad.”

“My fault,” Barnes grumbled, but raised his shirt up so Howard could take off the bandage and check the wound.  Howard’s eyebrows rose sharply in acknowledgement of Barnes’s admission, but he didn’t say anything.

Howard cut away the gauze and lifted up the bandage positioned over the wound.  He peered closer, frowning.  

“How is it?”

“It’s gone.  No trace,” he adds, touching a gentle fingertip to the spot that was gouged open yesterday.  “I think those blood tests are even more important now, Barnes,” Howard added, straightening.  He has his suspicions about what’s been done to Barnes, about how extensive it might be, but until he has proof, he’s not going to expose his train of thought.  It could be dark and dangerous and not something anyone really wants to know.

Barnes swallowed hard and nodded.  “Okay.  Make it quick.”  With that, Bucky shimmied his butt back on the examination table, but his gaze kept tracking back to the case on the workshop table.  “What _is_ that thing?”

“Prosthetic arm.  A lot of boys are coming back from the front missing arms, legs, hands and feet.  Army offers ‘em a hook or a claw, maybe a ceramic or wooden slug for a limb.  A marionette leg, a rigid placeholder.  Not much functionality, and even less aesthetics.”  Howard had a sudden idea, something that might distract Barnes from the tests.  “You wanna see?”   

Howard was rewarded by an expression that was both hungry and shy, and he wondered what Sargent James Buchanan Barnes’s interests were outside the good Captain.  He had good, quick hands – Howard wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Barnes had been a mechanic in civilian life.  Grinning, he went back over to the bench and brought back the case, lifting the prosthetic out to share with Barnes.  “Careful, it marks up easily.”

Barnes lifted the arm out and held it gingerly, examining the machined parts avidly.   “This is beautiful,” he breathed, his breath fogging the surface of several of the interlocking plates.  He took the hand in his and flexed against the fingers; they gave with a little resistance, the individual knuckle joints moving much like his flesh hand.  He stretched the arm out alongside his own left arm and marveled at the artificial limb.  “You’re going to change the lives of so many people, Stark,” Barnes whispered reverently.

“Yeah, I would if it worked .  Well, the arm works on its own, but right now, it’s impossible to install it properly.  The ancillary sciences don’t exist yet.  We don’t have neurosurgery techniques available yet to connect this baby to a human brain and nervous system.  And we don’t have the orthopedics yet to attach it to a human spine without crushing the spine or the scapula or even the neck.  Somebody like Steve might survive the torque this thing would impose on the spine, but a normal human being would be practically torn apart by it.”

“Huh.  It’s a shame.  Guy in my old unit would have given his left nut to have even one of these – both his arms got blown off in a Hydra attack.  They sent ‘im home with claws on both sides.  Betting his missus won’t stick around for that.” 

“Yeah, and I feel bad about that.  I really wanted to make a difference to all the boys coming home, but the technology’s not here yet.  Not to make this thing safe to install.  I guess if you didn’t care if the patient was in pain or half insane from invasive brain surgery, you could install it, I guess.  Any doctor who’d do that isn’t worthy of the title, though.”

Barnes snorted a laugh.  “S’what’re you gonna do?  Go to med school?”

“Thinking of it, yeah.  If no one else can develop the techniques I need to make it work, maybe I need to do it myself.  Okay, you’re done.”

“What?  I didn’t feel a thing –“

“Of course not – I distracted you with my beautiful technology.  So tell me, Barnes, what were you before the war filled up your dance card, hmm?”

“You mean, besides me and –“ he waved toward “out there.”  “Worked the docks mostly.  In a garage when I could get the work – I love tinkering with cars.  Love making things work,” he added with a genuine smile.

“A man after my own heart, then.  Maybe, when this is over, you should look me up.  That new GI bill will help pay for college – could be you’d be happy working with my team.”

“Huh,” Barnes snorted, but he didn’t look unpleased.  In fact, he looked positively interested.  “Yeah, okay. Not really thinking ‘after the war’ yet, though.”

“No, no one is, really.  You boys have done a lot to turn the tide of the war, you know that, right?  You’ll make this goddamned war shorter, that’s for sure.”

“Huh,” Barnes repeated, but this time he really was smiling.  “It’ll go a lot faster once we take out Hydra.  Damn rat-bastards need to die and just stay dead.”

Howard chuckled at that.  “Yeah, I’m getting’ tired of wasting my best work on those assholes.  But, hey, as long as you need to go on missions, you get to spend time with, you know.  Were you?  A thing, I mean?  Before the war.”

“Mebbe.  No.  Couldn’t be.  Illegal.”

“Hmm.  One-sided?  I mean, did Steve, er, Captain Rogers –“

“None of your business, Stark.  I can answer questions for myself, but Steve … Steve’s off-limits.  Why you so interested, anyway?  Got designs on Captain America?”

“I wouldn’t say no.  But I do have a theory that among other things, Erskine’s formula may well have altered his body chemistry so he’s more attractive to, well, people.”

“He’s built like a fucking god – what’s he need chemical help for?”

“He wasn’t always, was he?  And you didn’t care?”

“He’s my best friend.  We were like seven years old when we first met.  I picked him off the ground and dusted him off and then put the guy who’d knocked him down through a wooden fence.  Since that day, we’ve always had each other’s backs.  Steve’s the most important person on the planet to me.  So?  Is there a point to these questions?” Barnes demanded, sliding to the edge of the exam table to drop his feet to the floor.  His body language was clear – he was done here.

“Nah, not really.  Idle and inappropriate curiosity, I guess.”  Howard didn’t admit that his questions tied to his suspicions about how Barnes may have been altered – and some of Erskine’s guesses about how the serum might affect Rogers in the long-term.  Not for the first time, he was sorry his old friend wasn’t here to see how his work has succeeded.  And he was especially sorry that Erskine wasn’t here to figure out what was happening now with Barnes.  Erskine would have had Barnes’s blood samples analyzed already, and he’d have all the changes catalogued and cross-matched to Rogers.

“So, that wound healed, huh?  No scar?” Barnes asked, anger diffused for the moment.

“Nothin’ to mar your pretty body.  Girls’ll still come running.”

“That’s kind of weird, though, isn’t it?”

“You healed very fast, yes.  Not weird for everyone –”

“If you’re Steve Fucking Rogers, you mean,” Barnes corrected him.  And then he frowned at Howard, and Howard could almost see the connections coming together.  “You think I’m like him,” Bucky added in a low, breath-filled voice.

“Possibly.”

Something ignited in Barnes’s eyes then.  If asked about it later, Howard might have called it a combination of joy and need.  Something powerful at any rate, something primeval.  “Need to test it.  Cut me.”

“What?”

“Cut me.  Need a sharp blade, it’ll be quick.  And I’ll be back same time tomorrow.”

Howard drew a shaky breath.  Barnes had offered him exactly what he wanted.  All he had to do was allow himself to accept it.  And so he did.

***

“Well?” Bucky demanded impatiently, holding his sleeve up so Stark could examine the wound he’d inflicted on himself yesterday.

“See for yourself,” Stark said, pushing the arm and the damaged flesh into Bucky’s line of sight.

Nothing.  Not even a scar.  Not even a little white line to show where the blade had bitten into his flesh.  Bucky gasped as the possibilities flooded his brain.  “So, I _am_ … like –“ he breathed, looking out toward the space beyond the arch.  He saw Steve standing there, head bent over a folder, face serious as he studied the contents.  Beside Steve stood Agent Carter, her dark hair curled around her face, brushing near Steve’s cheek.  And Bucky’s heart clenched.  He barely registered Stark’s disclaimer, “It doesn’t prove anything.  The results of the blood tests aren’t back yet.”

But as Bucky watched Steve and Carter, Howard seemed to read his mind, or maybe his face just betrayed what he was feeling too much.  It seemed like in the past couple of days, since that first admission, he was way too open with Howard Stark.  But it helped to have someone to talk to.  He couldn’t tell Steve how he felt, especially not now.  He was happy for Steve to finally find someone, but he just hoped that she really knew how lucky she was …

“She saw him, you know.  When he was tiny and weak.  She was part of the team that selected him, although Erskine wasn’t going to settle for anyone but Rogers.  Was looking for a good man rather than a strong man.  He believed that the serum would bring out more of what the person already was.”

“Yeah, it did,” Bucky said quietly.  “Steve was always a stand-up guy with a heart bigger’n the whole damn planet, best friend a fella could ever ask for. Scrappy sonovabitch, never met a fight he’d back down from, or a fist he didn’t get a bloody nose from. Always had ‘em on the ropes, never needed anybody’s help. I don’t know why, but no one else ever saw that.  

“So she knew him before he was like that,” he jerked his head toward the SSR nerve center and Steve Rogers in particular.  “So?”

“So she tried to stop the experiment.  She tried to save him from all the pain of the transformation.  Dare I say she liked the little guy.”

“She did?”

“Yep.  My friend, I think you’re looking at the real deal.  And if you don’t mind me askin’, how does that make _you_ feel?”

“Proud.  Somebody else could see what I always saw.  He deserves the best.   As dames go, she’s aces. Great gams and hell, I love a woman in uniform. Or out of it. Red, pouty lips, eyes’d see right down to your soul. That’s how come she could see Steve, wasn’t fooled by the shrimpy exterior. She could see his soul, and she knew it was beautiful. I could almost love her for that, ‘cept it just might mean I’d lose him to somebody who really deserved him. And that about breaks my heart.”  Bucky turned to Howard and looked at him, really looked at him, studying his face for lurid interest, or mocking humor.  Instead, he found a serious, thoughtful expression, underpinned with a sadness, a pain.  “How does that make _you_ feel?” he asked softly.

“Kinda awed, actually.  Steve Rogers is a lucky man.  I only hope I’m lucky enough to get loved that well by one person, let alone two.  Eh, sport?”

Bucky didn’t have a chance to answer, because Steve finally looked up from that damned folder and noticed him in Stark’s workshop.  He smiled a Steve-sized smile and hurried over.  “Buck, glad I saw you here.  Look, we’ve gotten intel on movement by Hydra’s top scientist.  He’s going to be travelling through the Alps on a big train …”

***

The results came back from the lab a couple of days later, and Howard Stark couldn’t wait to review them with Barnes.  They confirmed their suspicions, that the Hydra experimentation had altered Barnes in significant ways.  He didn’t understand how that could be the case, since Schmidt’s people didn’t have access to Erskine’s Vita-Rays, but he supposed it was possible that Schmidt had found a way to replicate the radiation that Erskine had used.  Lord knew, he’d tried to suss it out, with no joy, but perhaps Schmidt had been more involved in the original development than Erskine had been willing to admit.  And with Schmidt as patient zero, it was possible they’d been able to extract enough of the serum to replicate more.  It unnerved him to think that Hydra might be developing more supersoldiers, and he hoped that with the extraction of Barnes, they hadn’t realized how close they’d come.

There was still more testing to be done, but he also felt that his preliminary assumptions regarding cell regeneration were true as well.  Barnes clearly healed like Rogers.  But based on the samples he’d taken from both young men, and his conversations with Erskine throughout the development of Project Rebirth, he suspected that the cell regeneration went beyond simple healing.  He believed that both men would age very slowly, if at all.  It was just possible they might even be immortal.  And Howard found that oddly comforting – Steve could have Peggy now, and Barnes would always be there in the wings.  He’d get his happily ever after, he’d just have to wait it out.

Since when did he fall in love with James Buchanan Barnes?  He shook his head.  Nah, just a crush, surely.  And probably the moment that Barnes admitted how he felt about Steve Rogers.

He was prowling through the base in search of Barnes – he heard the Commandos were back – when he ran into Peggy Carter, looking ashen and drawn.

“Peg, have you seen Sargent Barnes –“

She flung herself into his arms, weeping.  He was never one to turn away a woman in need, so he wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair and back soothingly.  

“It’s okay,” he murmured.  “It’s gonna be okay.  What happened?”

“It’s Barnes,” she whispered hoarsely.  “He didn’t make it.”

Barnes was gone.  There was no future happily ever after for Barnes, after all.  And Rogers might have Peggy, and that might be enough.  But he suspected that there was a Barnes-sized hole in Rogers’ life right now that might never be filled.

There was a Barnes-sized hole in Howard’s life, too, although he knew he’d have an easier time getting over the loss than Steve Rogers ever would.

And how did that make _him_ feel? 

**Author's Note:**

> This sort of just came to me, rising out the headcanon I've developed that the Winter Soldier's prosthetic was actually designed by Howard Stark and stolen by Hydra.
> 
> Comments welcome and encouraged!


End file.
